Abstract

Benjamin Whichcote, the reputed father of Cambridge Platonism, and Henry Hallywell, a younger member of the group, each preached a sermon series on Philippians 4:8 in which they stressed the necessity of moral virtue as a means to deiformity and participation in God. It is argued here that both drew on the Platonic and Origenian epistemological doctrine that there must be conformity between the knower and the thing known, and the Christian soteriological and ethical implications of this doctrine are explored. The dependence of Hallywell on Whichcote and the impossibility of his having read Whichcote in a printed source also suggest his close association with a group of rational divines gathered around Whichcote at St Lawrence Jewry in London. The present study introduces that group and calls for further prosopographical research on London Latitudinarianism, especially in relation to Cambridge Platonism.